In the two years after Liz’s tutorial, there are a mere handful of encounters. The visits are a fading memory.
He sends a postcard from the West Country, soon after their last meeting; he is there on holiday with his family.
A year later, he attends a church service in support of another whom he has tutored. The church crouches in a steep-sided valley, rough moorland spreading away to the horizon. He knows the area well as he has worked in the vicinity for a number of years, soon after his own training was completed. He is thinking of Liz as he drives along the valley. Will she be at the service? He cannot keep at bay the excitement brought on by this possibility. The feeling is familiar. It is no different from how he felt before each of her fortnightly visits.
Cursing the plans he has made to call in for tea with friends in a neighbouring village, he nears the church. If it had not been for this invitation, he might have telephoned and offered her a lift.
His heart jumps as he enters the dim interior of the building. She is there, sitting near the front. He identifies her immediately by the cloud of white hair that he has always loved. He has no idea if she has seen him. From his vantage point several rows back, he can look at her as much as he wishes without it being obvious. And he will make sure that he gets out of the building as soon as the service is over, so that he can intercept her as she leaves.
But by the time he negotiates his way through the throng of colleagues and acquaintances anxious to speak to him, she is nowhere to be seen. Cursing again this missed opportunity to speak to her, David stands irresolute. But, amazingly, there she is, walking along the road towards him.
‘Hello, Liz. I thought I’d missed you. I saw you in the church. How are you?’
‘Fine, thank you. It’s beautiful here, isn’t it, though not easy to find. I’ve never been this way before.’
‘Haven’t you? I used to work not far from here, so I know it well. I would have rung and offered you a lift, but I’m calling on some friends for tea while I’m over this way.’
She looks uncomfortable. ‘I had better let you get off then. I don’t want to make you late.’
‘It’s all right. I’ve got a few minutes. Let’s walk along the pavement or I’ll get stopped by someone or other I’d rather avoid.’
They stroll slowly away from the church and he begins to tell her what he has been doing since they last met. Strange how easy it is to talk to her, he thinks. Not that she says much in reply. But he can tell that she is listening, giving her whole attention to what he is saying, unlike so many of his colleagues, who have half an ear cocked to what is going on in the rest of the room.
David glances unwillingly at his watch and sighs. ‘I suppose I’d better go. They’ll be expecting me.’ He hesitates, his eyes on the moorland stretching into the distance. Then he rests his eyes on her and smiles. ‘It’s been lovely to see you again. Do keep in touch.’ He steps towards her, minded to kiss her but uncertain whether she would welcome it. But she turns away and is gone, the opportunity lost. He watches her unlock the car and slide into the seat. As she leaves the parking space, she turns her head and waves. His eyes follow the car until it is out of sight.
The excitement of the encounter drains away, leaving him spiritless and depressed. For several minutes he stands. At last, he makes his way slowly to his car and drives off to meet his friends.
*
It is five months later. The phone rings. Absent-mindedly he lifts the handset, his mind still on the letter spread out on the desk in front of him.
‘Hello. David Penrose speaking.’
‘It’s Liz.’
His heart misses a beat.
‘Oh, hi! How are you?’
‘Fine.’ There is a pause. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’
‘Of course.’
‘Are you going to the service in the cathedral?’
‘Yes, I am. Are you going?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure of the parking there. Do you think I could beg a lift? Please say if it’s not convenient.’
David smiles broadly at a grey squirrel that’s swinging on the empty bird feeder outside his window. ‘Of course you can have a lift. I’m glad you asked me.’
‘I can drive over to yours. What time will you leave?’
‘That would be a help. Do you know where we live now?'
'Along the main road and first right after the roundabout. Is that right?'
'Yes, halfway down on the left hand side – number thirty-three. Can you be here for nine? That should give us ample time to get there and find somewhere to park.’
‘Thanks a lot. I’ll see you on Friday then.’
‘Bye, Liz. Bye’
As he replaces the handset, he remembers with irritation that he has promised a lift to the church organist.
*
Raindrops are spattering his bedroom window as he watches her negotiate the narrow entrance in front of his house. A different house now, in a different town from the one in which they last met. By the time he has driven through the narrow terrace-lined streets with her at his side, rain is hammering on the roof of the car. He stops at a block of flats to pick up his other passenger. Liz offers to move onto the back seat and goes to open the door.
‘No. Stay where you are. I won’t be a minute.’ He splashes through the puddles. If he can’t give her his undivided attention, the least he is going to do is have her sitting next to him.
The city is awash. When they arrive, they have to skirt round puddles, ill-protected with a large umbrella. The cathedral strikes chill as they enter. By coincidence, he is seated right behind her. Once again, he can observe her without being noticed by either her or his colleagues.
It’s still raining when they emerge an hour and a half later.
They are quiet on the return journey. He is wondering how he can prolong their time together, picturing with dismay her car growing small as she drives away from his house. It is not until the church organist is retracing her steps up the path to her flat and they are covering the last half mile that he glances at her.
‘Do you fancy coming in for a cup of tea?’
She hesitates and he thinks again that she might refuse.
‘I’d better ring work and check that they’re not expecting me. Do you mind if I use your phone?’
While she dials the number, he puts the kettle on, singing in a low voice the words of an operatic aria.
‘I value your friendship. Please keep in touch,’ he says as she leaves.
*
The journey home from the Greek islands is delayed. A bird has flown into one of the engines of the plane. For twenty-four hours, Liz and her husband are stranded in the capital. She knows that she will miss a meeting of lay-preachers that has been arranged by David, but she can do nothing about it until her return. When, at last, she is back, she phones to apologise. Even now it is a mere politeness to do so, and a slight regret at having missed the meeting. Nothing more.
A note arrives.
Glad you enjoyed your holiday. It’s good to know you are back safely. You are a very special person, Liz, with wonderful gifts. Please keep in touch – you’re a great friend to have. Take care of yourself. Lovely people are scarce. Love, David.
The following week, she rings. He asks her to call in for a cup of tea. When she leaves, they hug, as they usually do now, but this time he bends to kiss her lips. And though she takes hers away immediately and then, to show there are no hard feelings, kisses him briefly on the cheek, there is no mistaking the upsetting of the equilibrium.
Is she naive? Has this tipping of the scales been developing over weeks and months? If it has, it must have escaped her. Now, though, thinking over their recent contacts, she can see how it might have come about. Panic swirls in her guts and settles there like a suffocating blanket.
The next day, like a bomber ringing to warn of imminent carnage, he phones to tell her he has written her a letter.
It’s the worst possible time – a cup of tea freshly brewed, her daughter just in from school, her husband bustling through the front door, demanding to know who is on the phone. She shakes her head, indicating that it’s not for him. Her voice is matter-of-fact, dismissive even. It isn’t how she means to be, but what else can she do? Had she been alone she would have asked him what was in the letter, though she has a pretty good idea.
‘I think you know what it contains,’ he says in a low voice. Later, she recognises this pre-empting of a revelation to be a way of lessening his turbulent emotions. The effect now is to increase her own anxiety even more.
‘Oh! Do I?’ She pretends innocence.
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow,’ he says.
‘Yes, all right. Bye for now.’ Her voice is carefully light.
‘Who was that?’ her husband asks again.
‘David. He might have to rearrange the next meeting of lay-preachers.’
‘Oh.’ He hurries past her into the kitchen. She lets out an unsteady breath.
‘Can’t stop. I have to be back at work in ten minutes.’ She gives an empty smile. She has heard these words or similar more times than she cares to remember. ‘I’ll try and finish for seven, so we’re not late for the dinner party.’
And pigs might fly, she thinks.
Unusually, he is true to his word.
*
It is a beautiful summer’s evening, shadows long across the fields, the sun sinking in a cloudless sky, dusk drawing sweet perfumes from flowers and trees. She balances on the edge of a settee. Through the open French windows, an intermittent light breeze wafts the scent of roses into the room. She feels another lurch of panic, like jumping off a cliff, she imagines, or waking from a particularly frightful dream.
The clink of glasses and coffee cups on the low table drags her thoughts back into the room and she tries to concentrate on what is being said. Maybe she has imagined it all. Perhaps she has read the signs wrongly. Yes, that is it. She has invented the whole nightmare scenario. Her heart gives another huge lurch. Why try and pretend? She has invented nothing.
The smell of roses makes her want to cry. She longs for home. Will the evening never end?
After a decent interval, they say their goodbyes. Her husband drives. He says little. Liz says less. Not that there is anything unusual in this. They seldom talk. Their minds exist on different planes that rarely meet. She is wondering how she will get through the remaining hours of darkness.
*
The sky is brightening now. It is only two days past the summer solstice. Tiptoeing into the kitchen, Liz fills the kettle and flicks the switch. When it boils, she pours water onto a teabag and silently opens the fridge door for milk. Then she retraces her steps to the study and sits down at her desk. Dawn is insinuating its fingers between the spreading branches of the oak trees in the cornfield that she can see from the window.
She is exhausted and her eyes sting with sleeplessness.
Now that she is out of her bed she can think more clearly, try to assemble her thoughts in some kind of order, even if such an order brings her no nearer a decision. At least the rampaging panic of the night can be brought under some kind of control. She sips her hot tea, scalding her tongue.
How has it come to this? She shakes her head in disbelief. How can this have happened? There was no hint of it when first they met. There was no hint of it until very recently. She did not encourage him, never thought of him as anything other than a friend, a friend whom she looked up to and admired.
The more she thinks about it, however, the more she begins to doubt her ability to analyse her feelings – her feelings for him and her feelings towards all the various people with whom she has come into contact over the years. It is rocking the cornerstones of her self-assurance, and her belief in herself has never been very strong.
The family are stirring now. She pulls her latest work in front of her. If asked, she has risen early to write. She does this often, writing articles for the church magazine and giving talks to various organisations in the church community. It is no different from what she has done so often over the last five years. The day begins. She bathes, dresses, eats breakfast, chivvies her daughter into piano practice, sends her off with schoolbooks, freshly washed games clothes and an eye on the clock, and drives to work. Is she behaving normally? If she isn’t, no one seems to notice.
Her decision is made – the first decision, that is. She will drive home as soon as her morning work is finished and check the post. That way she will know whether her worst fears are realised and there will be no possibility of the letter getting into the wrong hands.
With a detachment born of years of practice, she pushes her life into the background and concentrates on the lives of those who walk through the door and sit in front of her. As each one leaves, Liz glances at the clock. It is the only sign that she cannot totally dismiss from her mind the advancing tidal wave.
The letter is on the mat. She can no longer deceive herself into thinking that its contents are innocuous.
Dearest Liz,
How I longed to tell you all that was on my mind when we met last time. I couldn’t bring myself to, not knowing whether you would welcome it.
I love you.
I know this will bring difficulties, but I can no longer keep silent.
I think you may feel the same about me. If I am wrong, I apologise. If I am right, then you may be pleased that I have finally said it.
Love, D xx